


Girl, Erased

by vegemites



Category: The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan (Video Game), Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Therapy, sam's a chaotic bisexual no i do not take constructive criticism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:48:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26813890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vegemites/pseuds/vegemites
Summary: Sam Giddings had, for an excruciatingly long time, suffered with an intense loneliness, brought on by the distance immediately placed between her and the only other survivors of the Blackwood Mountain Massacre. So when she's placed in a therapy group for trauma victims, she doesn't necessarily expect to find someone who understands so well; who so easily pieces together the puzzles of her life without fault. But Conrad Harrington appears in all of his lacklustre glory, and maybe, Sam isn't as alone as she thought.
Relationships: Jessica Riley & Matt Taylor (Until Dawn), Sam Giddings/Conrad (Dark Pictures), Sam Giddings/Mike Munroe
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In this version; Alex Smith ( Man of Medan ), Emily, Chris and Ash ( Until Dawn ) are all dead. I'm sorry if they were your faves, I didn't choose them for any reason other than they weren't necessary for this really. But none of them are painted in a bad light, I promise, and it isn't biased against or for any of them. 
> 
> There are little mentions of Mike/Sam, Sam/Jess and Sam/Josh but they're barely there, like blink and you'll miss it. Anywho, fun reading !!

She feels like a frog, spread bare in front of a gathering of lowly, uneducated freshman, ready to be dissected. They push and prod at her, shout and softly whisper, they try to unfold all of her secrets, unfold her, with forceful hands but she does not budge. They want her secrets to be laid bare like petals on a flower, but she is dying and not yet in bloom. They roll their eyes without much care for her wellbeing whenever she insists upon the monsters on the mountain, whenever she weeps, tears carving rivers in her cheeks, and screams at them about how they just fucking ripped Chris open, right in front of her.

They call it trauma, that all of them; all the survivors, are sharing some hallucination, unable to grasp or process what truely happened because, in the end, all they are are damaged souls and broken minds. What a load of bullshit, Sam thinks, and the rest of them think it too. Especially when the detectives, still buried beneath a mountain of denial, witness the co-workers they sent out into the mountain pulled back, dismembered, flayed and ripped to shreds, all shoved into a body bag and sent home. One of them starts to sway; she's younger, quick-thinking and intelligent, and realises the differences between a severe case of trauma and the simple truth. But they cannot officially declare monsters on Blackwood Mountain, so the FBI swoop in, looses ten of their members to the haunting hills in which the charred cabin sits upon, and announces that a mutated strain of rabies has infected local bears and prompted them to attack.

In all the years Sam visited that mountain with Beth, Josh and Hannah, she never once saw or heard of a bear, but what can she do?

Well, her mum says that she can go to therapy. Each parent has got their immediate solution to their child's inevitably life-long spiral of trauma and pain, and each seems to appear to fizzle out in a year ( if they're lucky ) and allow all of those problems to regrow in their mind, like weeds in a garden.

Arguably, Jess had got it the worst; her parents, once loving and kind to all those who crossed into the Riley threshold, are hostile and fully blame Josh and Mike for everything that happened to her. The second she was released from the ICU, her parents, on the money that came from the Washington's ( hush money, essentially ), made plans to move her to some elite rehabilitation centre in Sweden. Jess was a terrible mixture of complete apathy and total rage, consistently switching between the two until she was alone with Matt, and then she swelled with an immense sadness.

Jess and Sam had never been close, but in the two weeks she had left in America, they became fast friends, closer than Jess or Sam had been with anybody in the group; and that was the same with everyone. Then, she left, and she wouldn't be the only one.

Mike, while not moving entire continents, was moved to his grandparent's house in California, a far cry away from New York. Mike and Sam had experienced something she could only describe as a strange tie between them, created through a night of horrors and fortified through an aftermath of agony. And, despite the insisting of keeping in touch, they both knew that, eventually, they would loose interaction all together.

And now, it's Sam's turn for torture. The idea of group therapy was placed so deviously into her mind by a man named Dr. Alan Hill, who the Washington's offered to pay visits too for Sam. Mrs. Giddings agreed, and now, after a single hour with the stranger, she's getting shipped off to sit in a circle with a group of strangers and confess that she saw monsters kill her friends.

She had already been brutally desensitised to being mocked about it, but there was something more eerily scary about people genuinely believing her that terrifies her more. Maybe, she surmises, that if people believe then it has to be true, and she can no longer shrug it off as a nightmare or dream. She tells this to Jessica through the email she gets to send her once a week, Jessica responds in two days with 10,000 words of in-depth cathartic analysis of the entire situation, that seems to burn the want to speak about it anymore from her mind.

Therapy is going to be a bitch, and she knows it, but she decides that she can keep quiet and let the others speak.

When she arrives, sitting in the passenger seat of her mum's car; head pressed against the cool window as fog clouds the glass, she lets out an audible sigh, hoping to alert her mother of the total reluctance she has about the entire situation. Her mother rolls her eyes, strangely glee on the misty morning, and unlocks the car door.

"You'll be fine, darling," She says, smooth and comforting, but not enough to quell the nerves that send shock waves throughout her. "Relax, and you can always call me if it gets overwhelming, okay?"

Sam inhales, deeply through her nose, and releases air with a push through her mouth. She frowns, still feeling jittery and on edge, in the absolute worst state to ask her invasive questions about her trauma.

"Okay, see you in an hour?" Sam asks, and her mother nods before restarting the car engine, and Sam pulls away.

There's only a small cluster of cars in the parking lot; she counts about four, but sees a bus stop across the street and realises that half of them probably don't own a car, like her. She wonders if it'll be bustling with people, and the thought terrifies and soothes her; maybe they won't ask her anything, too overwhelmed with the ebb and flow of strangers in the room, or maybe, they'll put her on the spot in front of twenty odd people and force her to speak.

She taps her foot against the floor, gripping her phone in her pocket, and considers calling a taxi, but visualises the disappointment dancing in her mother's eyes, the disapproval in Dr Alan Hill's and groans in displeasure before turning to face the looming, brick institution.

The first face she sees is one of total misery, and it's almost comforting to think that's she not alone. Perhaps they were all forced by their parents into sharing up their darkest secrets. She's directed into a room on the left, where five people already sit in chairs, and another three are free. She takes a seat beside a woman slightly older than herself, scrolling absent-mindedly through her phone, and feels safer beneath the protective shadow of total ignorance and indifference to her existence. Two more people pile in, and suddenly the room feels suffocatingly small, the lights are blaring down on her and her knee bobs up and down.

"Okay, guys, we're all here so let's get started for today; we have a few fresh faces with us, so, to reintroduce, my name is Dr Lana Harolds, would any of our newcomers like to introduce themselves?" The woman looks between Sam, a guy in his thirties, and another girl who seems even more anxious than Sam herself. None of them look prepared to speak up, and the rest of the room's eyes glance from person to person, waiting for someone to ease the slowly, simmering tension within the room.

Realising that no one is going to speak, Sam clears her throat and all eyes are drawn to her. She feels regret blossom within her, and she tries not to run from the room, instead, she balls her hand into a fist until her nails draw bloody crescents into her palm and she manages to stammer out a few words.

"Um... Hi? My name's Sam, Sam Giddings," She announces, pushing amber hair from her face and trying to find relief within the calming face of Dr Lana.

"Nice to meet you, Sam. Now, would you like to tell us why you're here today?" Lana asks, and it's a deeply probing question, and Sam's unsure if she's aware of the weight it carries. For a moment, Sam considers spilling it all and gauging their reactions, trying to see if they'd think she was batshit crazy or not. The temptation is strong as she looks between each disinterested face, and it wins over. 

"Over the course of a night, I was psychologically tormented by one of my best friends, I watched three of my closet friends and a stranger get viciously and savagely murdered by monsters that everyone I've ever met insists are just a figment of my imagination, and then ran from them myself before blowing up a cabin," It all comes out in a sputter of jumbled words that grabs everyone's attention. 

Silence falls in heavy, ashen clouds, and Lana clears her throat, about to speak up before a booming laugh comes from the chair diagonal to her's. Sam shoots the stranger a poignant glare, and a man, only about two years older than her, looks back. 

"Incredible; and you all told me I was fucking crazy... looks like we've got two loonies in this bin, eh?" He wiggles his eyebrows at Lana, and the woman scoffs in disbelief.

"Conrad, please, Sam was trying to share her story,"  
  
"Oh, it's ok, I was done anyways," Sam sheepishly adds, sinking into her seat.

"What, so I say lost ship and chemical warfare, and I get put on anti-psychotics, and she says fucking monsters on a mountain, and she... what? Gets special treatment? Not very far if you ask me," Conrad slumps in his seat, and Lana, boiling with underlying rage, forces a smile and ignores the entire interaction, turning to the next girl.

Sam looks over in Conrad's corner, and he shoots her a wink, and she turns away, cheeks burning from a mixture of embarrassment and fluster. The last good-looking guy that winked at her was Mike, and the likeliness of that happening again is slim to none. She smiles back, a small one, and they both seem content with that for the rest of the session. 


	2. Cigarettes

Sam despises the heavy, lingering stench of nicotine dancing throughout the air but, that being said, the serenity that flows through her body with each deep inhale is enough to persuade her to ignore it. She rests her back nonchalantly against the mauve brick of the ominous building, chewing nervously on her bottom lip despite radiating easy confidence. (It's her gift, Hannah had once told her, her ability to appear totally apathetic despite the way her heart drums against her fragile ribcage.) And she pushes a wayward lock of amber hair behind her ear before the steady tapping of feet against the gravel of the parking lot has her hurling the cigarette as far away from her being as possible. 

But, its not the dreadful, disappointed face of her mother or Dr Lana that she had anticipated, it's the barely familiar, obviously fatigued expression of a half-stranger. Conrad, he said his name was. He winked at her last session and she liked it too much. 

"Oh...," He pauses when he looks up from his shuffling feet to see her perched there, like a deer caught in headlights. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise-," 

"It's ok... it's whatever. I'm just trying to soak up whatever fresh air I can before I'm trapped in that room for another hour," Sam tries to add levity to the suffocating air, but all she gets is a half-grunt of amusement before Conrad is shoving himself up against the wall, slumping against it as if he hadn't slept in a week. He looks like he hasn't, anyways. 

"Fresh air while smoking? Bit of an oxymoron don't you think?" Conrad quirks an eyebrow upwards, and Sam, too tired to explain herself to someone who's opinion doesn't weight too heavy on her shoulders, shrugs and lets her eyes falter and shutter close for a second. 

"I'm surprised you even know what that word means," Sam retorts, and she hears the dulcet singing of a hoarse, muffled laugh. 

"My sister used to shove grammar down my throat before I was even allowed to meet her boyfriend... the perks of your brother in law being a doctor," Conrad sniffs before Sam notices his entire body freeze over, limbs locking into place. It's so subtle that anyone could miss it, but Sam's made a science out of crushing her emotions down into nothing but slight movements and murmurs beneath her breath, and she knows it when she sees it, like an artist knows their style of painting. 

"What type of doctor is he?" She tries, wary with her words, like dipping a toe into water to test the temperature. 

"He... uhh.. he was going to be a surgeon," 

And there it is, like glass shattering around them, the realisation crashes down upon her. As awful as it is, you can't 'survive a massacre' unless someone's dead. (Well... in Sam's experience, no one really survives a massacre, you just claw yourself out of the wreckage of what your life once was, and claw yourself through each day until you give up or life gives up for you.) 

"My friend wanted to be surgeon... when we were little, she'd force me to play operation with her every time we hung out," Sam sputters out, eloquence slipping from her like water through fingers, and tries to gauge his reaction, waiting for a fiery burst of accusations of insensitivity. 

But there is none, it's just silent, and the air that was once so heavy above her eases, ever-so-slightly, with the soft upturn of his peach lips. (Not that Sam is staring at his lips.) 

"What's her name?" Conrad asks, subdued and soft as it tumbles from his mouth. 

"Her name is-was Beth," Sam's teeth relinquish her bottom lip, allowing her mouth to crack a subtle smile. 

Was. Always was, now. Beth was going to be a doctor. Hannah was going to have two kids by thirty. Emily was going to be the youngest female president. Chris and Ash were going to be married at twenty-five (a bet Sam had placed with Josh three months before the trip.) 

"You never get over to it," Conrad muses, his smile beginning to drop from his lips. 

"What?" She inquires, more dandelion tufts of hair falling from her ponytail, but a part of her already knows what he's talking about. 

"Speaking like they're gone when they're still alive in your memory... in your heart," It's somewhere between a bitter spit and a broken cry when he speaks, but its something that strikes a chord within Sam's heart all the same. 

"Isn't that why we have therapy? To get over to it?" She tilts her head forward, something in her burning to catch his eye. 

"No... we have therapy to get used to it. I don't think we'll ever get over it, and I don't think we're meant too... and that's ok," Conrad shrugs, indifferent as he stares forward into the scare parking lot. And, in the simplicity of his words, a strange relief washes over Sam, something so peculiar and sudden that she's not sure if she's imagining the dampness on her cheek or if an actual tear had escaped her. 

When he looks back at her, shock blooms across his expressions and she realises that she hadn't imagined it, and that tears swelled her eyes and burnt rivers into cheeks. And Conrad, who spent years constructing the perfect defences, brick by brick, stone by stone, reaches over with coarse, rough hands and gently swipes away one of her tears from her pillowy cheeks. 

"No one's ever told that it was ok to not get over it," Sam murmurs, and Conrad barely manages to pick it up, but when he does, it takes every bone in his body to hold him back from barrelling his arms around her petite frame. 

To hold her the way he had always longed to be held. 

But he doesn't, and they stand there, in comfortable silence, for the next ten minutes.


End file.
